China's economy has entered the "new normal" of decelerating growth, and the growth rate of the auto industry is also declining. The development of auto parts enterprises has been impacted unprecedentingly, presenting many problems. Of course, in the midst of crisis, some powerful parts and components enterprises have proved with their achievements that as long as they plan early, refocus on research and development, and make real transformation, they can still find new opportunities for development.
Auto parts industry "organic in danger"
1. Overall profitability is down, but more technical companies are still growing.
The profitability of China's auto parts industry has been declining in recent two years, which is a reality we have to admit. But at the same time, we also see that the technical content of the relatively high component enterprises in the enhancement of profitability.
According to the statistics of the annual reports of 71 listed parts companies in 2013, the cumulative operating revenue reached 334.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 14.17%; Net profit was 19.1 billion yuan, up 11.32% year on year, while average net profit margin was only 6.05%, down 11.55% year on year. The average net profit margin in 2012 was 6.84%, compared to an average net profit margin of 7.53% in 2011. From the data of the last three years, we can see that the profitability of parts enterprises is declining continuously.
One of the reasons for the continuous decline is that independent parts and components enterprises are mainly supporting the commercial vehicle industry, while the commercial vehicle industry only experienced a positive growth last year in the past three years, while the other two years witnessed a significant decline. Judging from the development and changes of China's truck industry in the last ten years, there have been five years of high growth and five years of negative growth. The decline of the commercial vehicle industry has seriously affected the parts industry.
2. Imports of key components increased and exports of low-level products suffered setbacks.
According to the national customs data, from January to June in 2014, the import amount of automobile goods in China reached 48.01 billion US dollars, and the export amount was 40.023 billion US dollars, with year-on-year growth of 28.28% and 7.33% respectively. China imported 17.726 billion US dollars of auto parts and exported 30.913 billion US dollars, both increasing compared with the same period last year.
While exports of auto parts increased, imports of key components such as automatic transmissions, controllers and electric injection systems increased even more. In recent years, many countries have launched anti-dumping and subsidy investigations against Chinese auto parts, and the EU has adopted the tire labeling law, all of which have had a significant impact on China's export of relevant parts and components.
3. The rapid growth of foreign capital poses severe challenges to independent parts enterprises.
At present, the foreign auto parts enterprises in the Chinese market is still growing rapidly, full of confidence in the future of the Chinese market, continue to maintain the leading position in technology, while the independent products are still at a disadvantage. Bosch, Delphi, Faurecia and many other foreign companies have plans to double their growth in China.
After years of hard work, foreign-funded auto parts enterprises have firmly occupied the high-end market of Chinese auto accessories by virtue of their technological advantages. Moreover, in recent years, many foreign-branded parts have begun to cut prices sharply, squeezing out the low-end market that used to belong to indigenous parts. This makes the survival of independent parts companies more difficult. Some new products with huge investment, such as ABS, electric spray system, etc., have their price advantages suppressed under the circumstance that foreign products have been greatly reduced in price, making it very difficult to promote them.
4. The trust of vehicle enterprises to independent parts enterprises declines, and even discriminates.
In China, the integral and zero relationship between vehicle and parts enterprises has been in conflict for a long time. In particular, Chinese and foreign parts enterprises are treated differently, which makes independent parts enterprises worse. For example, the settlement standards are different inside and outside, do not give the opportunity to participate in fair bidding, do not pay product development fees to local enterprises, vehicle enterprises, especially independent vehicle enterprises in the process of supporting these discriminatory practices, so that many local parts enterprises cold, helpless.
An important measure for the transformation and upgrading of independent brand vehicle enterprises is to upgrade the supply chain, and a large number of foreign brand parts are selected. More and more independent vehicle enterprises are closing their supporting doors to local parts enterprises.
Cultivating a strong component industry requires the consciousness of vehicle enterprises. The fate of independent vehicle enterprises is closely related to the development of local parts industry. If China's vehicle enterprises and parts enterprises are still in such an integral and zero relationship, China's auto industry will face serious crisis in the future.
5. Parts and components enterprises lack policy support.
It is an indisputable fact that China's auto parts industry lacks policy support. At present, the parts and components enterprises in China are in a state of unorganized and disorderly fighting alone. It is completely free competition, and the positive role the government should play is basically invisible.
The policies introduced in recent years are basically aimed at the whole vehicle. The most typical one is the new energy vehicle, which is a national strategic emerging industry. Large subsidies are allocated to the whole vehicle enterprises, while the battery, motor and other enterprises, which are the core components, are hardly supported.
In "China automotive news" returnees talent symposium, China's auto industry overseas experts unanimously called for parts in the development of enterprises has become China's automobile industry strong, whether the key that the government continues to stimulate and encourage the development of the automobile enterprise at the same time, could you please balance tilted to parts enterprises, help China better parts industry development.
6. Single investment channels and lack of strong financial support for technological innovation.
China's spare parts enterprises have a single channel of investment and financing, and a single channel of acquiring production factors. In recent years, some local governments give a lot of production factors such as land and capital to vehicle enterprises free of charge, but rarely hear the support of parts enterprises.
In the case of slowing growth of the auto market and difficult survival of parts enterprises, some enterprises are cutting down on R&D investment in order to keep the market and reduce costs. China's auto parts enterprises' R&D investment itself is insufficient, R&D investment accounts for 2%~3% of sales revenue of enterprises is good, and Bosch and other auto parts multinational companies' R&D investment ratio is more than 5%, some even as high as 10%. Insufficient investment in innovation will only widen the gap.
7. There are major problems in our systems and mechanisms, and there is still plenty of room for reform.
There is a large space for the reform of the system and mechanism in China's spare parts enterprises, and the reform dividend still exists. Some old parts and components enterprises are now operating very difficult, due to the rigid system and mechanism, adherence to the rules, failed to transform in time, resulting in marginalization or even elimination.
A large number of private enterprises and mixed ownership parts enterprises, due to the flexible system and mechanism, many enterprises are sensitive to the market response, strong adaptability, the current development state is good. Some private and mixed-ownership parts enterprises with ideals and pursuits have clear strategic objectives and clear planning, and have the determination and perseverance to become "century-old stores".
As for the institutional obstacles, they are also reflected in the alliance between enterprises. There are many associations in China's automobile industry, and the combination of production, education and research has been implemented for many years. However, many scientific research achievements have not been transformed, and many associations are fruitless. Of course, there are also good examples, such as the Automotive Lightweight Innovation Alliance organized by the Chinese Society of Automotive Engineering, and the large auto parts park in Hangzhou Bay New Area, Zhejiang Province, which have achieved good results.
8. There is a shortage of talents, but a number of leading talents in technological innovation have emerged.
During this year's Beijing Auto Show, we once conducted a questionnaire survey to auto parts enterprises. The survey shows that the lack of talents leads to the lack of technology in the independent brand auto parts enterprises, which is the main reason why the independent brand auto enterprises lag behind. When it comes to the most scarce talent types, engineers and management talents receive the highest votes, followed by sales talents and technical workers. No company believes that "there is no shortage of talent".
However, we are glad to see that in the parts industry, a number of leading talents in technical innovation are emerging at the historic moment, especially university professors and some researchers in colleges and universities, who take the lead in innovation and research on key parts and key technologies, bringing hope to the parts industry. For example, Professor Song Jian of Tsinghua University, who led the R&D of AMT of Suzhou Green Control, and Professor Xu Xiangyang of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, who played an important role in the Shengrui 8AT innovation project, etc.
Enjoying changes in hundreds of parts suppliers
There is no denying that there are many problems in China's auto parts industry, but we should not underestimate ourselves. We should also see the growth and progress of independent parts enterprises. For example, China's "100 Excellent Parts Suppliers" are all leaders in their respective segmented industries, leading the development of their respective segmented industries. They successfully realize the transformation and upgrading, achieved perfection in specialization, some realized leap-forward development after the implementation of overseas mergers and acquisitions, some have entered the system of supply chain of the multinational car companies, some on the key core components and already pull arm-wrestling multinational operation of spare parts, some advances on the path of energy conservation and emissions reduction.
1. Significant progress has been made in the development of specialization. Practice has proved that the only way out for the spare parts is to follow the refined, specialized, new and special road. In order to be a champion in singles, a component company can make a product to the extreme as long as it has specialized technology and a dedicated team. For example, Longcheng Precision Fabrying, a private enterprise located in Wujin, Jiangsu Province, only produces a small part of the motor claw pole, but it accounts for 33% of the global OEM market. The global OEM market is 180 million units, and Longcheng Precision Fabrying has achieved 60 million units, becoming the preferred supplier of Bosch, Valeo, Remy and other motor enterprises.
2. Acquire international advanced technology through acquisition. Such as electronic, through its acquisition of Germany pury, become the exclusive provider of BMW electric vehicle battery management system, has become audi, BMW, mercedes-benz luxury brands such as drivers of the operating system vendors, let the luxury brand printed on the stamp in China, both electronic and thus realize the leapfrog development, the scale of sales income 7 billion yuan.
3. Increased discourse power in a certain segment of the industry and enhanced international competitiveness. In the field of automobile wheels, Zhejiang Wanfeng Auto Wheel Co.,Ltd. has entered into a stage of deep strategic cooperation with GM, BMW, Ford and other international automobile enterprises. It is not only the global strategic supplier of GM, BMW and the exclusive supporting supplier of Land Rover in China, but also successfully entered into the Toyota system in Japan last year. In the field of airbag, Jinzhou Jinheng Automobile Safety System Co., Ltd. has successfully broken through the suppression of multinational competitors such as Autolif, TRW and Takata in the past few years, and entered the supporting system of multinational car companies such as Volkswagen, Peugeot and Citroen. In addition, there are many local enterprises that have become the global sales leader in the segment fields, such as Jinzhou Wanyou in the field of shock absorber piston rod, Far East transmission in the field of commercial vehicle transmission shaft, and Faust in the field of commercial vehicle transmission.
4. The transformation was successful and the products were upgraded. For example, Bohai Piston, the leading enterprise in the field of commercial vehicle piston in China, has successfully expanded to the passenger car market in recent years. It has not only established in-depth cooperation with Geely, Chery, BYD, Jianghuai, Changan and other independent brands, but also successfully entered the supporting system of European and American car companies. With its excellent quality, it has won the favor of senior management of the purchasing department of Volkswagen Group in Germany. In 2013, the enterprise for the German Volkswagen bulk supply; In 2014, it passed the VDA6.3 audit of Daimler-Benz with A high score of 91.4 and became the A-level supplier of Daimler-Benz, one of the four major automotive systems in the world. In addition, there are a large number of small upstarts with great potential for growth. For example, Kunming Guiyan Catalyst Co., Ltd., through years of research and development of three-effect rare-earth catalysts for automobile exhaust purification, has successfully entered the supporting system of Volkswagen, while Lopal Petrochemical entered the development of automobile urea products a few years ago and now occupies 70% of the market share of automobile urea.
5. Breakthroughs have been made in key components and the innovation mode has changed greatly. In recent years, local component companies have made important breakthroughs in key and core product areas such as automatic transmissions. Fast's automatic transmissions for commercial vehicles have been used in buses and dockside tractors in small quantities. After 7 years of research and development, Shandong Shengrui Transmission 8AT has entered the key stage of industrialization. The mass production of 8AT will not only shake the voice of foreign investment in this field, but also have a far-reaching impact on the development of China's autonomous automatic transmission industry.
We are more pleased to see that today's local component companies, no longer only pay attention to the scale, but pay more attention to product quality; No longer satisfied with the improvement of sales revenue, but pay more attention to the quality of operation; Instead of focusing on the competitiveness of individual products, we focus more on the competitiveness of the whole system. This means that the extensive way of doing business in the past has been gradually abandoned.
Automobile parts are the main battlefield of automobile technology innovation
Today, the situation of China's auto parts industry is "organic in danger". The industry challenges we face are very serious, but the large and diversified market demand, the changing industry landscape, and the various merger and reorganization opportunities in the global market, we have not lost the opportunity to break through.
At present, in the development trend of China's automobile market, I think the main battlefield for the future innovation and development of China's automobile is automobile parts. Components are the basis of the automobile industry, and the technology of the whole vehicle comes from the technological innovation of the components.
At present, the integrated innovation ability of the whole vehicle has reached a higher level, but the development level and innovation ability of the parts have not kept up with the pace of the whole vehicle. This provides opportunities for innovation and development in the current and future automotive parts markets. This opportunity is created by the market, which will inevitably determine the allocation of resources. In a state of market-determined resource allocation, private enterprises and mixed-ownership enterprises will be the main force to seize this opportunity. These companies can not only seize opportunities, but also turn them into capabilities. I have a feeling that their international capabilities will be improved beyond imagination, and their innovation in the two fields of new energy and the Internet will be beyond imagination.